Equations for Success

Mirror, Mirror, On the Wall…

2009-01-07T11:02:00.008-05:00

Call it mirroring or call it modeling, the result is still the same, we can all learn success by following the successful knowledge, habits, behaviors and attributes of other people. Chances are that if we learn to act like those who we view as successful, we will have that opportunity to be just as successful. This IS an educational experience.

Learn from successful people…
No matter how intelligent we are or how much education we receive, it’s impossible for anyone to learn everything they need to know to be successful by starting from scratch on each aspect. I know that as a parent, I’ve often told my children that they should learn by watching me or listening to stories of the mistakes that I’ve made throughout my life. If they do that, chances (and my hopes) are they won’t make the same mistakes I did and that they will learn from my failures. If you want to be successful, your best method is to find someone who has attained the vision you want to attain, and then do what they have done. If they are truly successful; education, personal development and professional development have been instrumental in acquiring their success. Research their lives and find what educational steps they completed that have resulted in them attaining what you want to attain. Do what they have done. Make that educational investment in yourself and your vision.
You can learn from failures…
Failing is part of the learning process. Don’t be afraid to fail. All successful people have failed at some time throughout their life. The only time failure is truly a failure is when nothing is learned from the experience. When you make a venture into some element of personal/professional development, you may not be as successful as you wish on your first attempt. I know that I’ve had to reread books, re-listen to audio cd’s, and re-watch instructional videos repeatedly until I was able lift the information I needed from the experience. Sometimes, it just takes time. Don’t give up if you don’t feel successful the first time. Continue the experience and gain the education you need from every experience. Learn from your failures and the failures of others.
Find a mentor…
Now that you’ve decided that you can learn by watching successful people and realize that failure is really an educational tool, take the next step. Use one or several of these “models” as your mentors. The beauty is… they never have to know. Throughout my life, I’ve had many mentors… my parents, my music teachers, my peers and my supervisors. These are the mentors I’ve let know that have influenced the individual that I’ve become. I also have individuals that don’t know that I use them as my mentors. Whether your mentors know or don’t know they are serving as your mentor is incidental. You may even some day call that person you don’t know but use as a mentor and let them know how they have impacted your life. When I began my career as a speaker, I had researched some of the best speakers available and found Joe Calloway. I watched his videos, read his books, and used him as an “unknown” mentor for years. When a new video was released, he made a statement that resonated with me. It was like an epiphany. When I finished watching, I found his number and called him to thank him. He now knows that I consider him one of my mentors. The benefits that you receive by having mentors will be monumental and move you closer to and quicker to achieving your vision, goals and objectives. Mentors will help you to become successful.

Now that we have learned from successful people, realize that failure is a learning experience and find one or more mentors to mirror/model we have to realize that the modeling/mirroring that you received from your mentor(s) is not a one time or short term event. You have the education, skill or behavior that you’ve learned, but now it needs to become a habit. Good habits aren’t always easy to learn and any habit is usually created after 21 days of demonstrating the skills, behavior or knowledge. That’s why it takes smokers so long to quit… they have to “educated into” and learn a difficult, new habit of NOT Smoking. Here’s an equation that will help you create your new habit.

The sum of Mirroring and/or Mentoring raised exponentially by Choice, multiplied by Personal Application is then multiplied by Time Investment and results in attaining an Educational Habit of Success.

Use mirroring and mentoring to create your new educational success habit. It may take some time, but it will be worth the investment and it will put you on the road to attaining your visions.

Happy Together...

2008-12-27T15:53:00.005-05:00

One of the ways to insure success with using education as a tool is to surround yourself with “like minded” people that recognize that need of education. Take a class, seminar or workshop on a topic where personal improvement is needed. Make friends with the other people in that class. They are there for the same reason as you… personal improvement, which will help them to achieve their visions. Network with these people and create a “Mastermind” group. A Mastermind group is a group of 10 to 12 individuals with similar attitudes concerning success and achievement. These are the people who will help to spur you on when events in your life become difficult or when you begin to lose hope.

If you’re going to surround yourself with positive, success minded and educationally involved people, make sure that you distance yourself from those people in your life who will be toxic to you. These people are the non-supporters… the nay-sayers... the ones who don’t want you to succeed. In many cases, these will be the complacent ones… those who are accepting of their “lot” in life and will not make the “educational investment” in themselves to improve their lives and attain their visions. Instead of helping you, these people will continue to drag you down and ultimately be the cause of your failures. Make sure the members of your mastermind group have their own “senses of urgency”. These “senses of urgency” don’t have to be the same as yours, but they need to drive individuals in your group. Your group members can’t be complacent. To attract the people you need and drive off toxic individuals, use the following equation:

Any member of your mastermind group should be the sum of a Person of Vision, the mental security of Positive Knowing and of a Similar Positive Attitude raised exponentially by the power of a “Sense of Urgency” multiplied by the sum of being Success Oriented and Goal Oriented. This entire product is then raised exponentially by a willingness to make an Educational Investment that results in the creation of a Success Oriented Individual. This individual will attract similar individuals together numbering no more than 12.

Your economy, your education and your success will be determined by the people you surround yourself with… choose wisely.

Setting goals and objectives that match your vision…

2008-12-24T14:50:00.005-05:00

You have the desire and you’ve finally made the decision to respond to the multiple “sense of urgencies” that have now been created for you… you’ve decided: for you to live the life you want and survive these tough economic times,

you’re going to have to make some changes
you agree that education will be the solution to your situation
and you have the vision for your life visualized perfectly

Now, how are you going to get there?

First of all, you have to be proactive. You’ve established the vision for your life, now you need to decide what goals and objectives will help you realize your vision. Next, ask yourself how are you going to attain your goal / objectives? What aspects of education you’re going to need? Know that the goals you set must be small, realistic, and attainable and they lead you towards your vision. Break your goals down into smaller goals that you can manage. Not only will you be able to attain these goals quicker, but you will be left with a positive feeling of success and hopefulness that you will attain your ultimate goals. With the small goals that you’ve set for yourself, what’s going to be the best method for you to use and be successful?

Take a formal class: you may be the type that likes structured / long term classes in a “school” environment. If that’s the case, look at your local universities or check out the adult education resources in your region
Go to a seminar or workshop: These can be either one shot experiences or even up to a one week experience. Find one that interests you and get a referral from someone who has taken the program. Find one that matches your preferred learning style
Do independent research in the library or on the internet: Google is an amazing resource and so is “YouTube”. Whatever you’re looking for, you can find on the internet. Visit your local library if you want the “hands on” books and resources that they provide, but make sure that you don’t believe everything that you read. Check out the credentials of some of the experts whose information you’re learning. Learning the wrong information can be deadly.
Invest in a series of audios for your car: You have your own “University on Wheels” available whenever you want. Riding in your car is the perfect opportunity to pop in a CD / Tape and learn something new.
Videos for the home: For those of you that are visual learners rather than aural learners, buy or rent videos by the experts. There are plenty of them out there. You can even develop your own “swap” club with friends who are trying to change themselves.
Start a book club or mastermind group: Surround yourself with people who think like you and are eager for getting the education they need to successfully change their lives.
Learning Videos on-line and on-demand: In addition to the short videos you can find on “YouTube”, ILearningGlobal is a wonderful new resource that’s available on the web for a modest monthly subscription. These videos contain cutting edge information, delivered by the experts and using the latest HD / streaming technology, audio downloads or e-books. If you want it or need it, it’s there.

Find the method that works the best for you and get started. Don’t procrastinate and use time to your advantage. Your success may not come quickly, but you need to be continuously involved and engaged in goal attainment. Know that education will be the greatest method you can use to attain your goals / objectives and eventually realize your vision. Understand that you can’t get something of value for nothing. You need to determine the value and worth of the information and education you need. Don’t be like a majority of the population and expect something for nothing or that continued education won’t help you.

Regardless of your particular situation and the economy, for positive change to take place and for you to attain the goals and objectives you’ve set for yourself, you must invest in yourself.

Education is that investment.

To achieve your SPECIFIC Goals and/or Objectives, you must make a Financial Investment as well as an investment of your Time. This sum is raised exponentially by your “Sense of Urgency” then multiplied by the EDucation you’re gaining, with the entire product raised exponentially by your Desire for CHange, then the entire result divided by your Vision. This produces your SPECIFIC Goal and/or Objective.

For your vision to be attained, you must successfully achieve both your specific and overarching goals and objectives. How do you do this? Invest in yourself… be willing to change… develop a sense of urgency, create a vision for yourself, set goals and objectives to realize your vision, and use education as your tool.

I can see clearly now…

2008-12-19T08:47:00.004-05:00

I’m sure that for as long as you can remember, you’ve had dreams and wishes of how you wanted your life to be. As a child, I’m sure you wished for the latest and greatest toy for your birthday. As a teen, maybe you’ve dreamed of sailing that boat, skiing down your favorite slope or marrying the person of your dreams. Then, the unexpected happens and your dreams are either dashed or turned into nightmares and your visions for the future are destroyed. In today’s economy, it’s possible you may be faced with losing a job, losing a home, not being able to provide for your family, not being able to pay bills; you may be covered with credit card debt and it just may be, the stress from these will start to affect your physical or mental health. Your “senses of urgency” are now piling up and the vision for your bright and happy future has now disappeared. What are you going to do?

To reestablish your vision, you have to make several decisions. The first is to make sure that you understand that you want to develop a new vision and move towards its realization, but you can’t continue to do the same things that you have done before. Aspects of your life have changed… the rules have changed and you have to adapt to a new way of thinking. They say that the definition of insanity is doing the same things over and over again and then expecting different results each time. The next decision that needs to be made is how is education going to play a role in helping you develop and attain your new vision? If you can’t afford to take classes, research on line. Find that information that is going to increase your marketability based on knowledge and skill sets. Go to the library, borrow audio and video tapes… be proactive. Most of the problems that besiege people in life are the result of them being reactive rather than proactive. Find people that think similarly to you. Surround yourself with those people that are positive and working towards being successful. Work to eliminate the toxic people in your life that are going to pull you down. For your next decision, close your eyes and see yourself where you want to be in five years. Make the vision as real as possible. Making the vision tangible will help you move to achievement. Realize also that with your “success” vision you’re not just going to attain one aspect of success, other elements will come with you. If you are searching for wealth, chances are other aspects of success will also occur such as health, relaxation our spirituality. With one area of success come others. Make your vision reflect that potential.

What’s the equation that will help you create or recreate your vision?

Positive Knowing + Effort + Attitude raised exponentially to the power of Imagination will create your Vision.

Positive Knowing, not positive thinking is the main part of this equation. Creating your vision and relying only on positive thinking just creates wishful thinking. We have to KNOW that we are going to attain our vision, not just wish that we do. Effort means placing yourself in a position to be proactive about your situation. Don’t allow yourself to react to various influences on your life. Go out and grab those things that you need for success. Attitude is essential. If you allow yourself to be affected by those who are negative, it will grow in you like a cancer and deprive you of the vision you want to attain. After adding these key components, you have to use the infinite creativeness of your imagination. Your vision will only be limited by your own imagination. Reach for the grandest vision you want and deserve.

Create your vision, let no one stand in your way and use all the power of education to help you attain your dreams.

Change… not the kind you get back from your dollar

2008-12-18T11:11:00.009-05:00

Great… you’ve now either developed your own sense of urgency or had one created for you. What’s next? Now you’re going to apply your “sense of urgency” to education and get yourself on the road to success, but here comes your first roadblock. As a result of recognizing your “sense of urgency”, you’ve just realized that you may have to change some things about yourself, your desired end results or the manner in which you do things. Something has to change and you have to have that desire to change.

Change is good when the results are positive. Not ALL change is good and change never needs to occur just for the sake of change. To determine the degree of change that needs to occur, ask yourself these questions… to achieve what I need to achieve, do I have to make some changes, what are those changes, are the changes going to relieve my “sense of urgency” and what do I NOT need to change that will help me to attain my goals?

There are 5 steps to establishing change and each step needs to be progressed through.

Pre-contemplation: (This occurs prior to developing a “sense of urgency”) This is the time when you aren’t thinking about any type of change, but something in your life will occur to move you to the next level of change which is…
Contemplation: Something has happened in your life to make you think about making a change. This is directly resulting from a “sense of urgency” being established and will make a major and direct impact on the quality of your life. Now that you have decided that there needs to be a change, you enter the third level of change which is…
Preparation: The right side of the brain takes over during this level. There is not going to be just “one right answer” that will meet the needs of your preparation. This is the time for brainstorming and discovering as many different ways to make preparations to changes as possible. Now that you have prepared to change, we move to the level of…
Action: What is it that you are going to do that is going to cause change to take place and move you towards relieving your “sense of urgency?” The action instigates the change and this change needs to become habit. Habits occur after approximately 21 days of continued practice so for this habit to become the standard, we need to move to the last level of…
Maintenance: Maintenance allows us to in doctrine the new change into our behaviors over a period of time. Continued positive use of this new, changed behavior will allow for continued success over the long term.

For me, I always relate the levels of change to my former smoking habit. In pre-contemplation, I was never concerned or truly even aware about my smoking habit until prices per pack increased. Contemplation for me hit when my wife put me in the hospital one Saturday night because she could hear me gurgling across the room as I breathed. During my exam, I asked what the doctors were looking for with the response being cancer. Contemplation had turned to decision. My preparation involved making a choice as to what method I was going to use to stop smoking. I brainstormed my choices: gum, patches, hypnosis, will power, etc. Relying on the example of my father, I quit smoking by sheer will power. That was six years ago and I haven’t had a cigarette since. For me, maintenance is an ongoing event to this day. For maintenance, each day I get up and I have to make a conscious decision not to have a cigarette and I’ve never backwatered since I first quit.

This is how I relate to change. The change was difficult, but one that was brought on by having a “sense of urgency” created for me. Your “sense of urgency” needs to be just as dynamic in your mind and it needs to be based on what you need to accomplish to relieve that “sense of urgency” and move you towards your desired goals.

Here’s an element of your equation for success…

leads to Visions, Goals and Objectives

A “Sense of Urgency” raised exponentially to the power of “Desire for Change”, creates the motivator element leading to visions, goals and objectives.

Embrace the change that will be positive for you.

Developing a "Sense of Urgency"

2008-12-16T10:37:00.006-05:00

After watching the rise and fall of gas / oil prices during the last six months, the state of the real estate market and the current credit crunch, you'd think that "Urgency" would some how come into peoples lives. For those who have had direct negative exposure to any of the mentioned topics, I think that a "sense of urgency" has been developed for them. It's now urgent for them to find money to put gas into their cars or fuel home into their homes heating units, find a place to live that they can afford, or be able to borrow money as needed for essentials or possibly for college tuition. For the rest of us, we're either living in denial, feel secure in our domains, or have high levels of complacency. Complacency is the direct opposite of urgency and many Americans have a bad case of it. We feel save and secure in the "false" knowledge of "if we keep doing what we've been doing in the past and don't change anything, nothing bad is going to happen to us" or "it doesn't matter, I'll survive. I don't need to do anything different to improve my life."

All equations for success are developed through personal creation of a "sense of urgency." Deep down, everyone wants to succeed, whether it be in their career, personal relationships, wealth, health, spirituality, sense of community or relaxation, but they lack the drive and perseverance to attain that success.

If you are experiencing occurrences in your life that you are dissatisfied with and you want to remove yourself from the pain that it creates, you've just created your "sense of urgency." Here's the first simple equation that will empower your sense of urgency...

"Sense of Urgency" + Education = Success

If you want to be successful, develop a "sense of urgency" and apply it to all the education that you can receive. This education doesn't always have to be in a formal setting of a classroom. Your education could come from independent reading / study, going to a workshop / training session, listening to different series of audio tapes, and anything else that will improve your skills or knowledge. Creating a "sense of urgency" is imperative if you truly want to move to more powerful equations of success. Create yours NOW!!!

America in Denial

2008-12-15T10:28:00.011-05:00

It shouldn’t take much investigation or research for the average American to discover that we are at the beginning of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930’s. Watch any news show for the current trends in the stock market, drive into any neighborhood and count the homes with “For Sale” or “Foreclosure” signs on lawns, read any newspaper to discover how many more people have lost or are going to lose their jobs. Businesses are slashing costs, families are using disposable income for essentials, churches and charities are reporting donations are down. As individuals, families and businesses, are we “circling the wagons” in preparation for the worst yet to come? Have we allowed ourselves to be reactive to the problems that directly affect us and now rely almost exclusively on our “political and financial leaders” to fix our problems? We have lost control; and with that loss of control comes the uncertainty of the future, a fear of the unknown and an overwhelming desire for survival. Most Americans are now feeling a “loss of control” in their lives. We need to regain our feeling of control. We need to be proactive in creating the future we desire for ourselves, our children and our nation. Education has always been based on the economy and now the salvation of our economy will be based on education. Education is the Economy.

If “Education” is truly the “Economy”, many of the decisions we make concerning budget cuts aimed at helping our economy will have negative consequences and create further long term problems for our economy. In public education, politicians and state level educators have offered streamlined budgets that will make enhanced classroom instruction even more difficult. Some cuts under consideration include fewer school days, larger class sizes, fewer instructional supplies and eliminating programs; but the public still expects superior results from students taking standardized tests. Will this really happen? When businesses need to make cuts in their operational budgets, one of the first line items targeted concerns employee training. Anyone that is currently employed will tell you that in order to maintain your position or especially to advance, training or further education is not only expected but essential; but the company now expects you to find your own training, because they either can no longer provide it or provide it only in limited amounts and to specific people.

Globally, two trillion dollars is collectively spent by countries on K-20 education and it’s estimated that in the US alone, businesses spend a minimum of 15 billion dollars yearly on training. Deep down we realize and know that education has worth and value, especially in this time of economic hardship. The rest of our global community does as well. As citizens of the US, we are all responsible for the education we receive and how we use that education to enhance our personal economics. All of us must place some level of importance and value on the education we receive. Former late night talk show host Johnny Carson was once quoted as saying, “People are willing to pay more for entertainment than education”. Unfortunately, he was right. People in general actually prefer to spend more money on entertaining than educating themselves. We can see that high attendance at sporting events is still occurring, people are still going to the movies for 2 hours of “escapism from reality” and video gaming among teens and “twenty somethings” are reaching new heights of popularity. We can’t afford the luxury of continued escapism and entertainment. This is denial.

We can no longer allow ourselves to be in denial. If education is to be expected and allowed to improve our economy, it’s time that we as a nation stop denying reality and stop making excuses about our need of rigorous lifelong learning and education as an institution. For our economy to thrive and be successful, education must be the priority for all citizens of this nation. All of us, whether parents, educators or members of society, must establish ourselves as leaders in a unified front that come together in strength; creating the futures we envision. Our futures, the futures for our children and the future of this nation are dependent on reinvigorating our economy and this reinvigoration will only occur resulting from education. Education is essential, not optional, and education must be properly and completely funded. Are we going to have to “tighten our belts” during this economy? Absolutely, but trimming education in any way, shape, form or at any level, is not the answer. Education will be the economic salvation of this country and our global community. We can’t afford to scrimp.

Education is the answer to our economy. America cannot afford to be in denial any longer.